Visiting a Neighbour
I had a nice lunch out earlier this week when I met up with Linda Jones, who along with her colleagues Carol, Katie and Helen runs a local communications agency called Passionate Media.
Linda is a member of my forum at www.mywriterscircle.com, and also subscribes to my E-Writer newsletter. We've been in touch a few times over various matters, so it was great to meet her face to face at last.
I was also very interested to see her office. Passionate Media has a room on the upstairs floor of an old church in Gailey, Staffordshire, the ground floor of which has been converted into a pottery. At one end of their office you can see the top of a beautiful old stained glass window. It's a lovely and unusual place to work.
Anyway, a couple of points arose which I thought might be of interest to readers of this blog. First of all, Linda and her colleagues are always keen to hear from people who have an unusual human-interest story to tell. They have contacts with a number of national magazines and newspapers, and if they think your story would interest them they will help you sell it for a fair price while ensuring that it is handled in a sensitive fashion. I've put a copy of their card below...
For more information about what they are looking for, in Linda's own words, please see this topic on my forum. Note that, as their main clients are UK magazines, they are primarily interested in people living in Britain. You can contact Passionate Media via the Contact Us form on their website.
Secondly, Linda told me that Passionate Media are providing PR support to a new publishing house called Public Eye Publications. This company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, is currently inviting proposals from writers for two series of books.
The first series is 'The Greatest Tips in the World'. These are short, paperback books on a wide range of topics - those published so far include Barbeque, Yoga, Cats and Dogs, Golfing, Personal Success, Cookery, DIY, and so on. The books are written in a light-hearted but informative way, and include lots of cartoon illustrations. A link to more info about one of these titles at the Amazon.co.uk online bookshop is given below.
The second series is 'The Greatest in the World', e.g. 'The Greatest Cricketers in the World'. These will be hardback books, with photographic illustrations. Titles in this series are being launched in 2007 and will have a classy, coffee-table look and feel.
Ideas for either of these series are welcome, and you don't have to be UK-based (the author of the Barbeque Tips book comes from New Zealand!). Before you start writing, however, do read carefully their detailed submission guidelines. It would also be a good idea to order at least one title from the series (they're not expensive), to get a feel for what the publishers require.
Good luck!
Linda is a member of my forum at www.mywriterscircle.com, and also subscribes to my E-Writer newsletter. We've been in touch a few times over various matters, so it was great to meet her face to face at last.
I was also very interested to see her office. Passionate Media has a room on the upstairs floor of an old church in Gailey, Staffordshire, the ground floor of which has been converted into a pottery. At one end of their office you can see the top of a beautiful old stained glass window. It's a lovely and unusual place to work.
Anyway, a couple of points arose which I thought might be of interest to readers of this blog. First of all, Linda and her colleagues are always keen to hear from people who have an unusual human-interest story to tell. They have contacts with a number of national magazines and newspapers, and if they think your story would interest them they will help you sell it for a fair price while ensuring that it is handled in a sensitive fashion. I've put a copy of their card below...
For more information about what they are looking for, in Linda's own words, please see this topic on my forum. Note that, as their main clients are UK magazines, they are primarily interested in people living in Britain. You can contact Passionate Media via the Contact Us form on their website.
Secondly, Linda told me that Passionate Media are providing PR support to a new publishing house called Public Eye Publications. This company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, is currently inviting proposals from writers for two series of books.
The first series is 'The Greatest Tips in the World'. These are short, paperback books on a wide range of topics - those published so far include Barbeque, Yoga, Cats and Dogs, Golfing, Personal Success, Cookery, DIY, and so on. The books are written in a light-hearted but informative way, and include lots of cartoon illustrations. A link to more info about one of these titles at the Amazon.co.uk online bookshop is given below.
The second series is 'The Greatest in the World', e.g. 'The Greatest Cricketers in the World'. These will be hardback books, with photographic illustrations. Titles in this series are being launched in 2007 and will have a classy, coffee-table look and feel.
Ideas for either of these series are welcome, and you don't have to be UK-based (the author of the Barbeque Tips book comes from New Zealand!). Before you start writing, however, do read carefully their detailed submission guidelines. It would also be a good idea to order at least one title from the series (they're not expensive), to get a feel for what the publishers require.
Good luck!
Nick at 4:15 AM 
1 Comments:
Nick, many thanks for such a lovely mention.
It was great to meet you and to hear about your varied career.
As you say, it was great to put a face to a name and I know any picture of me that has appeared online in the last few years, is now sadly out of date. :-(
We would indeed welcome queries re human interest stories and hope the examples given in the link from your forum show realistically what we are looking for.
We understand that women's weekly magazines aren't everyone's cup of tea but our experience is that they treat their interviewees very well.
One small point to mention is that we have succumbed to the 'get rid of the 0870' number way of thinking so the number shown on the postcard above is now out of date.
We would prefer to be contacted by email. If anyone doesn't want to go to the trouble of filling out our online form then please email me at linda@passionatemedia.co.uk
If any of your readers would like to get a feel for the sort of stuff we are up to and see viewpoints from "jobbing journalists" then they could pop by to our blog at http://passionatemedia.typepad.com
You have made my day mentioning me as another site http://gettingink.typepad.com write about something I'd said yesterday.
I feel quite giddy now.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home